Jack's Train: A Toddler's Guide to Universal Connection 🚂

Last night we pulled out Christmas decorations, but when I started to hang a little wooden train on our tree, our son Jack stopped me. “I need my train!” he said, despite having discovered it in a dusty box two minutes earlier. I laughed, but then relatefully considered how his subjective experience is largely a kind of pre-differentiated oneness (he uses “I”, “you”, and “Jack” interchangeably to refer to himself). Everything is his, mirroring my understanding of everything belonging to the universe, or everything arising in awareness. In other words, speaking as God, it is his train! (and all of ours)

What might I discover trying on Jack’s view, in addition to my own? As non-two-year-olds, we have a mildly better understanding of separate identities, and therefore ownership, but what if I don’t take that for granted? 

The first place my mind went: Speaking like Jack, everything already is mine (not as Jordan, but as the awareness that holds/pervades Jordan and everything else). If I already have everything, I can stop trying to cling to “mine”. Stop needing to change people to get something I already have. I can relax and enjoy the world as it is. Ironically, trying on a more egocentric worldview, I find myself less self-centered, more in admiration and gratitude.

With love, Jordan